This time Shen Bing didn't let anyone else do it for him... If he didn't have confidence in the matchlock gun, how could he make his subordinates have confidence in it?
What's more, there is a barrel outside the barrel, so even if the barrel explodes, it will not hurt anyone.
Shen Bing raised his gun and aimed at the wooden shield a dozen steps away. When he pulled the trigger, he heard a "boom" and a burst of smoke. He looked at the wooden shield again, and nothing happened... He didn't know where the bullets were going. Already.
After thinking about it, Shen Bing ordered more than ten shields to be densely packed in front, and then fired another shot.
This time it hit the shield on the left. The projectile penetrated the wooden shield and then embedded deeply into the wooden pillar behind it.
This shocked Wang Ben and the others.
After looking at the bullet holes, Wang Ben exclaimed:
"General, this thing is so powerful even through the wooden shield."
"Even if the enemy is wearing armor, he won't be able to stop this thing!"
Yan was stunned when he saw how powerful this iron pipe was. After a while, he said:
"Although this thing is good, it is not accurate..."
Wang Ben retorted:
"So what if it's accurate? If we have thousands of pieces of equipment and shoot at the enemy indiscriminately, what preparations should we make?"
As soon as he heard it, he understood immediately, nodded and said:
"What the captain said is absolutely true. Just like the bow and arrow, even though they are not accurate, if there are too many arrows, they can always hit the enemy."
Shen Bing didn't say much. He just formulated several test plans for Ren Yigan's personal guards to test.
He hoped to find out at what distance the matchlock gun could penetrate the combination of wooden shields and armor, and how much charge was needed.
After some testing, it was found that the distance was sixty steps, which is about eighty meters.
This power should be said to be unsatisfactory. A normal matchlock gun should be able to kill enemies wearing armor from a distance of about 100 meters.
The lack of power may be due to insufficient airtightness of the ammunition.
But it is enough at this time. The distance of more than 80 meters will take about two minutes at the forward speed of Roman infantry or Seleucid super-pikemen, and two minutes can be fired ten times by a skilled musketeer... Usually The situation is 3 rounds per minute.
But that is a case where the soft lead bullet needs to be pushed hard into the barrel of the gun.
Smaller projectiles also have a small advantage, that is, loading is relatively easier. Shen Bing may even consider asking the gunner to load the projectiles and then slam the gun butt on the ground twice... This is a lazy approach of the musketeers. , although it is feasible, the life of the gun is reduced and it is easy to misfire.
Shen Bing finally decided not to do this, because as soon as there are more soldiers, they must be trained in a format, otherwise problems of this kind will easily occur.
On the other hand, the reason why the musketeer fires three times a minute is that the amount of charge is difficult to determine.
In this regard, Shen Bing can make necessary simplifications.
For example, the amount of powder is weighed in advance and packed in paper. After the soldier pours the gunpowder into the barrel, the wrapping paper can be stuffed into the barrel to increase air tightness.
In addition, Shen Bing felt that necessary improvements could be made to the fire door to make the reloading speed faster.
For example, the Prussian musket designed its fire door into an inverted cone shape, which means it is larger on the inside and smaller on the outside.
The advantage of designing in this shape is that after the gunpowder is loaded into the powder chamber, the top plug of the purge bar will cause the gunpowder to leak out from the inverted cone fire door.
Therefore, the step of loading gunpowder can be omitted. After loading the projectiles, you can directly raise the gun and shoot.
It is because of this small design that the Prussian musket allows ordinary soldiers to fire five rounds in one minute.
Five rounds were used against the enemy's three rounds, which gave the Prussian army a great advantage for a time.
Of course Shen Bing can also use this design at this time.
It’s just that it’s more troublesome to make on Edmond’s side.
When Shen Bing showed this modified painting to Edmond, Edmond seemed to have not yet reacted to the shock, and he was a little submissive and didn't know why.
Shen Bing asked:
"Can it be done?"
"If you make any mistake, Edmond, I will use you to test the power of that musket!"
Edmund was taken aback and replied immediately:
"Yes, general, I promise!"
"Also...please forgive me for what I said before, even if Seleucid fights back to Huo Musang again, I will not betray you!"
Shen Bing said "Oh" and asked:
"Why?"
"Do you think it's impossible for Seleucid to fight back?"
"You underestimate them, Edmund. They are a coalition of several countries. It is said that there are more than 200,000 people!"
Edmund replied:
"That's one of the reasons, General."
"Besides, I know that even if the Seleucids fight back and occupy Homusan, you will still defeat them one day!"
Shen Bing smiled, and there was some truth in what he said.
So the matchlock gun entered mass production after slight modifications.
At the same time, papermaking workshops were also built, and gunpowder was packed into cylindrical packets with the same weight using pieces of paper.
Shen Bing then designed an ammunition bag that could be hung on the waist, with a cylindrical medicine bag inserted on one side and projectiles on the other side.
In this way, it can be waterproof and moisture-proof, and the ammunition and projectiles can be placed in a bag for easy access by soldiers.
Shen Bing also thought about designing a bayonet.
But after thinking about it, I felt that it was not necessary, at least not now.
Because the bayonet of the matchlock was mainly aimed at cavalry... When the matchlock was invented, it was always unable to deal with the cavalry due to its slow loading and short range.
And if the infantry only has matchlocks in their hands, they are almost like lambs to be slaughtered in front of the cavalry.
Therefore, for a long time after the matchlock appeared, its phalanx still consisted of pikemen and musketeers.
Initially, it was a five-to-five configuration, with pikemen used to deal with cavalry and musketeers used to deal with infantry.
Later, the proportion of pikemen became smaller and smaller, until the bayonet appeared... The bayonet actually combined the pike and the musket into one piece of equipment, so the pikemen completely disappeared.
At this time, there is no need for Shen Bing to have a bayonet.
Because the Qin army is a strong cavalry force, it is basically impossible for Qin musketeers to face enemy cavalry.
As for infantry melee combat... there is no conflict between carrying a musket and hanging a sword on the waist.
Instead, Shen Bing was worried that one day if the enemy learned to use the bayonet, the cavalry in Shen Bing's hands would be useless.
When the matchlock gun entered the production process, Shen Bing on the other side asked Wang Ben to train the Shenwu Army in the operation of the matchlock gun.
This training was originally supposed to be more suitable until Li Yan's 20,000 infantry arrived, but it would only take two or three months for those 20,000 infantry to arrive.
If we organize training by then, I'm afraid it will be too late.